


Enter, a Stranger

by mldrgrl



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 11:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4827248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mldrgrl/pseuds/mldrgrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on rumors and speculation about the state of affairs in season 10.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enter, a Stranger

 

 

Mulder woke from a fitful doze to the sound of his cell phone, the offensive melody muffled under a slew of papers on the coffee table.  He pushed himself up and slid to the edge of the couch, scrubbing a hand over his face as he shifted papers around to search for the source of the noise. He found the phone, buried under a pile of folders that had toppled over and stared at the home screen displaying the familiar name and number.

 

“What's up, Doc?” he answered, connecting with the call and leaning back against the couch.

 

“Mulder, it’s me.”

 

“I know, Scully.”

 

“Is this a bad time?”

 

“Not that I know of.”

 

“I need to talk to you.”

 

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but is that not what we’re doing now?”

 

“I mean…I need to see you.”

 

Mulder rubbed the palm of his hand into against his brow and blew out a deep breath.  “Sure, Scully.”

 

“When do you think you might be available? I can come out to the house.”

 

“Let me check my social calendar.” Mulder paused. “Looks like I’m free until July of 2035 so pick a date between now and 20 years and I’ll pencil you in.”

 

Mulder heard Scully sigh in response.

 

“Anytime is fine, Scully.”

 

“Would two hours from now be too soon?”

 

Mulder pressed his lips together, stifling the first thought that popped into his brain: I haven’t seen you in six months, Scully, too soon is relative.  Instead, he licked his lips and looked around at the mess in the living area. “The maid’s on vacation,” he said. “I hope that won’t be a problem.”

 

“I’ll see you soon, Mulder.”

 

Mulder disconnected the call and tossed his cell phone back onto the pile on the coffee table.  The front end of the house had seen better days.  To put it mildly, the place was a disaster. He’d outgrown the office and started leaving piles of work on whatever surface was available; from the coffee table, to the little table he and Scully used to eat breakfast at, to all four chairs surrounding said table, to the top of the refrigerator.  He thought maybe he should at least make the place a bit more presentable, so he got up and half-heartedly gathered stacks of paper and dumped them into the office.  It didn’t make much of a difference, but with the kitchen at least reset to a decent appearance, he didn’t look like a complete slob.

 

With time to spare, Mulder decided to take a quick shower.  He wasn’t so far gone that he’d given up on grooming.  It had only been two days since he’d last showered and shaved, but it couldn’t hurt to freshen up.  He wasn’t going to shave, however. Scully had admitted to him once, rather begrudgingly after he shaved the beard he once grew, that a little scruff was a turn on.

 

After his shower, Mulder threw on a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt and went up to the bedroom.  He stood in front of the bed, contemplating. He hadn’t slept in the bed since Scully left, more than a year ago.  Almost nothing had been touched since then.  Occasionally he’d wander in when something was missing; a book he left on the nightstand or the ratty pair of jeans he wore to fix a leak in the roof. By and large he’d moved his things from the bedroom and bathroom to the closets and cabinets downstairs. He wondered if he should mess the room up a bit just to make it seem lived in.  He could unmake the bed or remove the few things she’d left on the nightstand and dresser, but she probably wouldn’t even make it upstairs to begin with and it wasn’t worth the effort.

 

Mulder went back out into the living area and took another look around, trying to analyze it from Scully’s perspective. He moved the running shoes from in front of the door and threw them in the side closet because Scully had always called them a tripping hazard.  He folded the blanket that was hanging off the edge of the couch and laid it neatly over the back.  Next, he hunted around the kitchen cabinets for some form of air freshener.  Fortunately, there was a relatively full spray can of Homemade Apple Pie that he vaguely remembered Scully claiming would give the house a holiday atmosphere.

 

The air freshener, which didn’t smell much like apple pie, but did have a pleasant scent, only served to make Mulder feel a little more melancholy than his normal state of melancholy.  He immediately had a sense memory of one of the few times it had gotten so cold the power went out and they’d had to use the wood burning stove for warmth.  He’d been able to sweet talk Scully into pulling out and setting up the air mattress they’d used before furnishing the house in front of the fire and camping out for the night. He tried to make popcorn on the stove, which didn’t work out so well, and ended with the whole house smelling of burnt popcorn.  Scully had laughed and said Mulder put too much butter on the popcorn anyway and their arteries would thank them later.  She sprayed the room down with Homemade Apple Pie to clear out the burnt popcorn smell and then they'd made love with the fire crackling behind them. 

 

Mulder heard a car engine in the distance and he peeked out of the curtain on the front window.  A black SUV was headed towards the house, one he’d never seen before. He squinted and focused on the glare obscuring his view of the driver and then breathed a sigh of relief as he caught sight of Scully just before she turned into the clearing in front of the house.  Mulder let the curtain fall back into place and he moved to the door, stepping out onto the porch and shoving his hands into his pockets as Scully slipped out of the car.

 

After all this time, Scully could still take his breath away.  She wore a black pair of heels that had to be an inch higher than anything he’d ever seen her wear. A black pencil skirt hugged her hips to mid-calf and clung to her like a second skin as she bent inside the back of the car to gather an armful of files.  She wore a cream-colored silk blouse tucked into her skirt, the cuffs tight on her wrists and collar closed around her throat like a choker. She’d cut her hair since the last time he saw her and styled it differently, curled loosely but precisely over her shoulders and parted sleekly in the middle.  The clothes made her look like a sexy librarian.  The hair made her look like a stern politician. She was still beautiful.

 

“New wheels?” Mulder asked, lifting his chin towards the car as she stepped up onto the first stair towards the porch.

 

Scully turned her head and then looked up at Mulder. “Last winter.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Scully made it to the top step and came face to face with Mulder.  They stared at each other for a few moments and then made hesitating motions to embrace lightly. Scully’s hands were full of files, but she turned her shoulder towards Mulder and lifted her chin. Mulder put an arm around her, briefly touching her back and his cheek just barely made contact with her hair. She smelled so good. Just like he remembered. He had to move away or else he’d have to get closer.

 

“Can I take these for you?” Mulder asked, pulling back and gesturing towards the files.

 

“Yes,” she said, relinquishing the folders to him. “This is what I need to talk to you about.”

 

“Come in,” he said.

 

Once inside, Mulder set down the stack of folders on the table he’d cleared not too long before.  Scully pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, crossing her legs.  All business, Mulder thought, taking a seat on the other side of her.  He didn’t feel much like business, though. Six months was a long time to go without laying eyes on her.  Too long. They communicated via email and phone, which she initiated, because that was how she wanted it, which amounted to maybe two or three calls a month.  He had her words, he had her voice, but he had really, really missed her face and her hands and her smell.

 

Caught staring, Mulder grabbed the first folder in the stack to give himself something to turn his attention to instead of her.  “So, what am I looking at?” he asked, skimming the first few lines of the top page.

 

“These are usernames and IP addresses of posters in a conspiracy theory message board I think you’re familiar with.”

 

“Sure.”

 

“Is this you?” Scully asked, dragging a fingernail down the page and pointing out one of the entries.  “Truthseeker1013?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Flip to the next page.”

 

Mulder turned the top page down onto the table and scanned the second page.  He flipped to the third and then the fourth.  “Over half of these IP addresses are the same.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“But the usernames are different.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“So one person is using multiple usernames to post on this board.”

 

“Twenty-two names in total.  That we know of.  These are also time-stamped.  If you look closer, you’ll see that the posts all come shortly after you make one yourself.”

 

“Who’s we?”

 

“What?”

 

“You said, ‘that we know of.’ Who’s we?”

 

“A friend.”

 

Mulder turned his head away from the pages in front of him and looked at Scully.  She had her eyes on the page and she didn’t look at him.

 

“Why don’t you save me the energy of putting together this puzzle and tell me what all this means and why you’re bringing it here,” he said.

 

“My friend is an investigative reporter who’s been digging into doomsday cults for years, both prior to, and post 2012. You can imagine the rabbit holes that followed.”

 

“No,” Mulder murmured lightly. “Can’t imagine at all.”

 

Scully smiled just a little.  “He’s been working on an angle that you might find interesting and right now, hinges on the interactions in this message group.”

 

Mulder bristled a little.  “So, your friend.  How did you meet him?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You just strike up a conversation with this guy in a coffee shop and it just so happens he’s investigating me?”

 

Scully leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Number one, he’s not investigating you. Number two, we did not just meet in a coffee shop.  We were introduced at a banquet for the hospital.  He didn’t make a connection between you and his investigation until months later.”

 

“It took months?  Not much of an investigator then.”

 

“Says the man who’s spent over half his life trying to unravel the exact same mystery.”

 

“So how did the world’s next Pulitzer prize winner for journalism put two and two together?”

 

Scully uncrossed her arms and leaned forward again, sliding the folder that Mulder had opened away to pick up the next one. “We got to know each other better,” she said.  “And it came up. You should look at this pattern. We think it’s possible this poster might be an informant feeding out information under the guise of acting a fool. You can see that in at least four of the usernames he uses he has a tendency to play devil’s advocate and then answers his own questions using another two of the names. The other names he uses are fairly innocuous.”

 

Mulder couldn’t stop staring at Scully and she wouldn’t stop staring at the folder in her hand.  “What makes you think it’s a he?” he asked.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Are you sleeping with him?”

 

“The informant?”

 

“Clark Kent.”

 

“That’s none of your business.”

 

“What’s his name?”

 

“Tad.”

 

“You’re sleeping with a guy named _Tad_?”

 

“You want to ask me that again, _Fox_?”

 

This time it was Mulder’s turn to sit back in his chair, crossing his arms.  He’d always loved verbally sparring with her about theories and cases, but he didn’t like it when they both devolved to spewing vitriol instead of being productive. He blamed himself for that today, but he wondered if she would ever know how truly painful it was to sit beside her and not be able to touch her.  It angered him and made him snippy.

 

Scully sighed and closed the folder in her hand, laying a hand on top of it.  “I’m not sleeping with him,” she said.  “And I didn’t come over here for you to act like a jealous boyfriend.”

 

“I’m not your boyfriend, Scully.”

 

“I know you’re not.”

 

“I’m your husband,” he husked, coming forward in his chair so that his face was close to hers.  “Unless there are other papers in here you haven’t shared yet.”

 

Scully turned her head away and then pointed her chin down to her lap.  She shook her head lightly and Mulder slid the folder she was covering out from under her hand, grazing the gold band on her ring finger with his thumb. He opened the folder and moved back in his chair again to read the highlighted portions of message board exchanges that were by now, months old.

 

“You’re coming to me now because Tad wants to determine if this alleged informant is spouting fact or fiction, is that it?” Mulder asked.

 

“In a nutshell.”

 

“Is Tad short for anything?  Thaddeus?  Theodore? Tadpole?”

 

“Mulder…”

 

“I think it’s a reasonable question.”

 

“Just Tad.  I thought you’d be more interested in what’s in these files.”

 

“Why would you think that?”

 

“I thought this was how you spent your time nowadays.”

 

“Do you _want_ me to be interested in these files?”

 

“Why are you being so difficult?”

 

“I mean, I’m just a little confused here, Scully.” Mulder threw down the file folder back onto the table and put his elbow down to prop his head up. He waited until Scully met his gaze and then he shook his head a little at her.  “Wasn’t this the whole crux of why you left? You said I was too obsessed with answers I’d never be able to find and now you’re back asking me to help this friend of yours do just that.  Wait, hang on, 2008 is calling and wants to say hello.”

 

“Nevermind, Mulder.”  Scully stood and moved the chair out of her way.

 

Mulder stood as well and followed her towards the door, moving quickly to block her exit.  He put a hand on the door to keep it closed as she reached for the knob.

 

“Four years ago you asked me to turn down Skinner’s offer to consult as a profiler and I did,” Mulder said, speaking at Scully’s shoulder since her back was to him.  “You told me you felt more secure knowing I was here, in one piece, and at the end of the day, I would always be here when you got home.”

 

“I know what I said.”

 

“Well, I didn’t go anywhere. I’m still here, Scully. Waiting for you to come home.”

 

“Mulder, please,” Scully whispered, dropping her head and pinching the bridge of her nose with two fingers.

 

“I could live a thousand years, Scully, and I’ll never know why you find it so difficult to hear me say that I love you.”

 

“It just isn’t enough.”

 

“What will be?”

 

“I don’t know.”  Scully shook her head and then lifted her chin, turning slightly so that she looked up at him.  Her eyes looked grey to him instead of the electric shade of blue he was accustomed to. He took his hand away from the door and let his arm swing down by his side.

 

“ _You_ called _me_ , Scully.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Do you want me to meet your friend about the files?”

 

“I think you could help each other.”

 

“Give him my number.  I’ll look at what you brought over.”

 

“All right.”  Scully opened the front door and squinted into the fading sun.

 

“Hey,” Mulder said, gathering the courage to take a chance.  He cupped Scully’s cheek and turned her head towards him just enough so that when he bent his own head, his mouth touched hers very lightly.  He lingered, reveling in the sweetness of sharing the same air as her as she exhaled in short, soft bursts from slightly parted lips. “I’ll always be here for you to come home to,” he whispered into her mouth.

 

Scully shivered and then she slipped away from him, shutting the door quietly behind her.  Mulder rested his forehead and one hand against the hard wood that separated. He heard the car start and then the sound of her driving away.  He sighed and made his way back to the table and to the folders she’d left behind.

 

The End


End file.
